Maryland’s Democrat-Drawn Congressional Map is Unconstitutional

Maryland’s congressional map, drawn by the Democratic state legislature in 2011, is an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander, according to an amicus brief filed today in Benisek v. Lamone by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and Holwell Shuster & Goldberg LLP. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument in the case on March 28.

The case is the second major partisan gerrymandering case the Court will review this year; Gill v. Whitford, in which the Brennan Center also filed a brief, deals with an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander in Wisconsin drawn by Republicans.

“Extreme gerrymandering is a bipartisan plague,” said Michael Li, senior counsel in the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program. “As long as the Supreme Court doesn’t firmly establish when it is illegal, experience shows that single-party controlled state legislatures will aggressively draw maps that lock in their party majority – ensuring thousands of citizens don’t have a meaningful vote. The Wisconsin and Maryland cases are an important chance to end extreme gerrymandering before the 2020 redistricting. If the Court doesn’t act, mapdrawing in 2021 will be a partisan free-for-all.”